


In The Grace of the World

by Ceares



Series: Hemlock Grove Indulgences [1]
Category: Hemlock Grove
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, fan bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 17:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2118333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ceares/pseuds/Ceares
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can make his heart steel, he can be strong enough for his daughter. Dragon and warrior.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Grace of the World

**Author's Note:**

> 1st in a line for my new obsession. Not beta read other than a look over, by a friend who hasn't seen the show so if you see anything you think needs correcting, please shout out.
> 
> Title from The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry(thanks Miranda)

Roman is working when the perimeter alarm beeps. Before he can flip the camera to face him, he hears footsteps running toward the door and he’s up and moving, fighting down panic. Nadia is already at the door, punching in the access code when he skids around the corner. 

She squeals and leaps, never doubting Peter will catch her. 

“Nadia!” She knows the rule, they gone over and over it. Don’t open the door unless he’s there with her. 

She rolls her eyes at him, over it as only an eight year old can be. “Tata doesn’t _count_ , Daddy.” 

It’s been three months since they’ve seen him and Peter’s hair is brushing his shoulders and he looks tired but so fucking good it makes Roman’s mouth water. He watches as Peter buries his face in Nadia’s neck, holding tight and breathing her in until she squirms to get down. He lets her go reluctantly, eyes rueful as they meet Roman’s over her head. 

 

They don’t talk about the year it took them to get her back or what they had to do to make that happen. The people that think his daughter is the anti-christ forgot that it’s not the child you need to worry about, it’s the father. 

They don’t talk about the year after that. The white streaks Destiny can’t dye away, the way that Peter still wore the ring from his missing finger around his neck, the bodies Roman adds to Pryce’s plasma soup, the way that Miranda never spoke and tried to kill herself twice more or the way that Nadia screamed her way through the nights unless Roman or Peter was in sight even though they couldn’t touch her, even though blood would pool at the corners of their eyes. If they’d been human, they wouldn’t have survived, but if they’d been human, none of this would have happened. 

 

“I have kittens, Tata! Come _see_.” Nadia is pulling so hard on Peter’s jacket she’s leaning back, full weight resting on her heels. If Peter moves, she’ll fall. 

Roman rolls his eyes and leans in, and kisses Peter, a sharp clash of lips and teeth. “Go on, your Mistress calls.”

Peter licks the blood off his lip, and grins a promise that makes Roman’s blood surge with hunger. He leans forward and Nadia loses her balance heading toward the floor with a startled giggle that turns into a shriek as Peter moves with preternatural speed, scooping her up just before she hits and throwing her over his shoulder. 

 

“That’s new.” Peter nods at the security set up, cameras at every door and window, motion sensors. They’re curled together on the couch, Nadia between them, head nestled under Peter’s arm, feet draped across Roman’s lap, eyes closed, heartbeat slowed, content. The cats watch them warily from under the desk. 

Roman glances at Nadia. “Olivia. She’s responsible for the cats too.” 

“Well shit!”

“Yeah, shit.” 

“You okay?” 

And Roman knows he’s not talking about physically. “Yeah.” He knows Peter still doesn’t get how he can feel nothing but hatred and fear for her. 

“She’s your mother.” 

“Linda is a mother. Olivia is a thing that eats it’s young and she wanted me to be the same.” He’d rather be dead, rather Nadia be dead than for them to be what she is.

Peter curls a hand protectively over Nadia’s head. 

Roman sighs. “I know she can protect herself, but”

“That’s our job.”

Roman nods. “I figured we had more time.”

 

They’re not actively running from Olivia, but he hasn’t heard from her in years and he lets his guard slip. When he comes home and finds her sitting on the sofa with Nadia at her feet, two black and white kittens holding her attention, it’s all he can do, filled with anger and fear, not to attack her there, drag her away from the child she once wanted to sacrifice. 

Nadia looks up, electric blue eyes almost glowing. “Daddy! Why didn’t you tell me I had another grandmother? Look, kittens. Can we keep them?”

Olivia’s expression tightens, the fond smile dropping from her face. “Another grandmother?”

Nadia nods, “Like Baba.” 

Her eyes narrow. “How quaint.” 

“Where’s Elise?”

Olivia shrugs. “She was happy to have the afternoon off.” 

Roman is sure it wasn’t voluntary and he can only be glad she didn’t do worse than hypnotize her. He assumes she’s playing nice for Nadia. “Nadia, go to your room and lock the door.” 

She looks up, eyes startled, darting between them. She stands, hesitates and grabs the kittens almost defiantly, holding them protectively against her chest as she leaves. 

Olivia leans back and crosses her legs. “She’s more obedient than you ever were, darling.” Her eyes are covetous and it makes him sick. 

“Leave.” 

“Don’t you think this ridiculous sulk has gone on long enough? It’s time for you to claim your birth right and Nadia after you.” 

She smiles, and there’s actual pride it it. “Do you know how rare it is to get the caul on your first try? Only that bastard Pryce didn’t tell me. I realize I almost made a terrible mistake, but everybody survived. Norman really had excellent genes.” She shakes her head, dropping her eyes, regret in her voice for a few seconds 

He moves fast, has her off the sofa and pinned against the wall in seconds. Even though the last time they were in this position, he ripped her tongue out, she doesn’t move, just smirks at him, fearlessly. 

“Stay away from my family.” 

“You wouldn’t have a family, you wouldn’t have anything if it wasn’t for me. You cry about poor Letha but you wouldn’t have Nadia. You think Shelly would have survived without my blood in her?” She sneered. “And your Gypsy? Beloved Peter, you feel _so_ connected to him because my blood runs through Rumancek veins.” 

He lets her go, steps back, his own sneer matching hers. “Giving you credit for anything, Olivia, would be like thanking horseshit for crops that grow.”

 

 

At ten he forces Nadia to go to bed. She pouts the whole way, casting sad looks over her shoulder.

They don’t know what Nadia is, what she’ll become, just that she’s powerful. But she’s got her mother’s blood, Miranda’s essence and Peter’s heart, and she has Roman, who is vigilant. He had no control over her conception, failed her in so many ways the first years of her life, but he won’t falter again. He can’t change the tainted blood, Olivia’s blood, his blood, that marks her but he can do that. He can make his heart steel, he can be strong enough for his daughter. Dragon and warrior.

 

Peter comes and goes, the wolf under his skin, or maybe just the Gypsy, restless in ways Roman can’t understand. Linda had squeezed his wrist tight and pulled him into a hug when she’d seen him again, seen them together. She’d whispered “let him run, honey, he’ll come back to you.” 

Now though, Peter curls around him, mouthing at his neck over the bruises he’s already made. Roman always gets treated like a chew-toy when Peter’s been gone for a while. They haven’t figured out why the bruises linger when nothing else does, if it’s their connection or the wolf in Peter that causes it. Roman still hasn’t met any other Umpirs, doesn’t particularly want to, though he supposes at some point if he lives long enough, he will. They have a good giggle over the look on Pryce’s face if they ask him about it though. 

“How much longer are you going to be here?”

“Hmm, Nadia finishes school in a month and I’m close to wrapping up. Maybe three months. How long can you stay?”

Peter looks up through long lashes and grins. “Maybe three months.” He shrugs. “And then I was thinking, Linda’s been bitching about seeing her grandkid. And Miranda texted to remind us about her show in October.” 

Roman stills. That sounds like Peter’s planning on sticking around for awhile. They were never inevitable, no matter how much it feels that way when they’re like this. There were times when it didn’t feel that way, when the thread between them felt tenuous and frayed. There were times when they bled on the edges of their connection, of the past -- the truth about Nadia’s parentage almost broke them for good. There were times when he thought the only reason Peter ever came back was because of Nadia. Those times had gotten less and less over the years. Maybe they were just fucking grown ups now. 

 

Miranda’s show is stunning, visceral in a way that her graphic novels only hint at. The pieces he’s going to buy aren’t just out of courtesy. She squeals when she sees them, introduces them around as ‘her boys’ and promises that she has something for them but that they have to find it themselves. 

 

Roman doesn’t know if Miranda is still a part of their lives because she wants to be or because she has to have somebody that knows she’s not crazy. It’s been years since she shared their bed, since it became ‘their’ bed, really, rather than just the place where they fucked and slept. Even before that, they never connected again the way they had that first time. Too much had happened.

It doesn’t matter though, because she’s still there for Nadia, not her favorite anymore -- Shelly had taken over that spot -- but a constant that helps ground his daughter in the goodness she needs to guard herself with. 

Roman finds it. Larger than the work that surrounds it, swirls of red and black, yellow orbs against a looming, snow white tower. Peter steps up behind him and tilts his head, looking at the painting. His hand slips into Roman’s, nails almost claws as they dig into his skin. And maybe there is still something that connects them because he and Peter have been dreaming of the White Tower, of Hemlock Grove, of going home.


End file.
